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Wednesday, 20 March 2013

Is there anything he could organize in a brewery? Comments on Minimum Unit Pricing

This post was written by Natasha Clarke, an MSc student at the University of Liverpool.

I recently attended the first annual Alcohol Research UK
conference in London and wanted to focus this post on the fascinating day of
talks that I was honoured to get the chance to listen to. I found the day
engaging, all the talks were brilliant and inspiring and I just wanted to touch
on an important issue that stuck with me on my journey home.

The most interesting for me related to MUP, Minimum Unit
Pricing. Cheap alcohol is said to be a major reason for heavy drinking and
talks of plans to increase the MUP to 40p or 45p have been long discussed. Its
first mention of the day was by Professor Jonathan Chick and Dr
Jan Gill in regards to Scotland. There it has been legislated but not yet
implemented, despite the predictions of a 7.2% decrease in consumption and a reduction in hospital
admissions. It was then discussed by Professor Keith Humphreys. He mentioned some
facts about MUP that I must admit I wasn’t quite aware of. I know it’s a good
idea but I’m never particularly good at defending its corner when my friends
complain about more expensive drinks. I now have more evidence to throw back at
them. It is not a taxation (it’s an increase in what the merchant charges on
some beverages), and it’s not moderate drinkers who will be affected, it is
heavy drinkers, because they generally buy cheaper drinks and therefore spend
less per unit of alcohol. Furthermore, most beverages would not actually be
affected by the change in price. Professor Humphreys interestingly mentioned
that the cost to moderate drinkers would be greater with a lower
MUP, due to NHS costs associated with heavy drinkers.

Evidence supporting its implementation from modelling data shows that the benefits of MUP are greater
at 45p than 40p in terms of reducing consumption and health care costs in all
population subgroups. Direct evidence from Canada shows that a 10%
increase in average minimum price resulted in a 32% reduction in wholly alcohol
attributable deaths between 2002 and 2009. This suggests the potential for
great benefits, and shows promise for the future. So I go home, enlightened,
and fall asleep dreaming of an improved world with a higher MUP, wake up and
see an article on the BBC News discussing the
uncertainty of whether Cameron will introduce the 45p per unit policy. He has
now failed to commit on the pricing change, so it seems the plans may have been
dropped…

Who knows what the future will hold: the evidence suggests MUP
will be effective yet the government are having second thoughts. Moderate
drinkers will hardly be affected, and nobody is trying to get all of us who do
like a drink now and then to abstain completely. We enjoy ourselves and that’s
what life is about. But the key word is moderation. Even if we don’t want to
stop drinking ourselves, we should support any policy changes that might help
heavier drinkers get back their enjoyment from life by cutting down on their
alcohol.

The day ended with Professor the Baroness Finlay of
Llandaff, who emphasised that even if public opinion is that alcoholics
have made a choice and are therefore unwilling to take the steps to give them
help, nobody can deny the secondary benefits that will come with reducing heavy
drinking in the wider population. Maybe we can prevent innocent bystanders from
being the victims of alcohol-related crimes, or free up NHS time from treating
drunken injuries so they can focus on other illnesses and ailments. People
think a rising MUP will punish the average drinker, but this is not the case.
If we want to push change then public opinion needs to change. This can only
happen when the public are informed properly about the benefits and understand
the evidence. At the end of the day that is why research is conducted, to get
the scientific evidence out to the public and ensure it has impact and promotes
change.

See below some interesting posts from Keith Humphreys, one
discussing MUP, the other on 24/7 sobriety for crime control.